SPRING 2008
Department of Engineering Newsletter
Engineering News
Disability Resources Group works to improve
water accessibility
by Barbara Ressler
Left: Messiah College students help pour the cement platform for our mock well system behind Frey Hall. The Collaboratory is grateful to Hempt Brothers, Inc. of
Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, for donating the cement for our project. Right: A woman with a disability tests whether a seat will improve her ability to pump water.
The Disability Resources Group in the IPC /
Collaboratory is working on a project to improve
water accessibility and personal hygiene for disabled
persons in West Africa. Access to clean water has
improved dramatically in West Africa thanks to
World Vision International’s installation of numerous hand-operated well systems. However, the
design of these well systems does not allow for easy
access by disabled persons. And once the water has
been pumped into its container, it is also extremely
difficult for the disabled person to transport the
water back to his or her home. Last January, students Emily Howell and Jim Davis traveled to Mali,
Africa, with Ray Norman, dean of the School of
Mathematics, Engineering, and Business, to observe
how disabled persons use the well pumps and
transport the water back to their homes. They also
learned about personal hygiene needs and latrine
construction. Emily was able to test some of our
design modifications to the well pumping stations,
and Jim was able to try different modifications to
the water transport containers. Over the spring
semester, World Vision employees will be constructing well and latrine test sites for our design modifications, which we will test on a return trip in June
2008. We also constructed a mock well system
behind the parking lot of Frey Hall where we can
experiment with different configurations before our
return trip. Emily, Jim, and Prof. Norman made
tremendous progress on their trip, and we are
excited by how their work will make the lives of
disabled persons less challenging.
“Once the water
has been pumped
into its container,
it is also extremely
difficult for the
disabled person
to transport the
water back to his
or her home.”
Communications group seeks funding for developing a Wireless Enabled Remote
Co-presence (WERC) for cognitively and behaviorally challenged clients
by Harold Underwood and SymBionyx staff
The Communications Group of the Collaboratory is seeking
grant funding from the Keystone Innovation Zone and the Keck
Foundation to support two students working full time over the
summer months, to develop and test the prototype of a system that
will meet a special need. Currently, as many as 1 in 150 children are
diagnosed with some form of autism, with degrees of impairment
ranging across what is called the Autism Spectrum. Those diagnosed
with Pervasive Development Disorder, also known as Asperger’s
Disorder, experience a higher functioning form of autism, typically
characterized by deficits in social functioning. However, such challenges need not necessarily preclude their employability or independent living in adult life. Potential employability and full capacities
for independent living can be achievable with remedial training and
life skills coaching properly oriented to Asperger’s-specific deficits.
The company SymBionyx exists to serve this employable-but-forremediation subset of the Autism Spectrum population. SymBionyx
addresses a gap in social services by developing a comprehensive
solution known as SocialWERC. SocialWERC combines one-onone job coaching with a skills-training process, supported by a
proprietary wireless communications technology known as Wireless
Enabled Remote Co-presence (WERC). WERC reconfigures existing
wireless communications hardware into a multi-component device
that—in combination with its involving associated technologies and
services—enables new forms of training and support for behaviorally,
socially, and/or cognitively challenged children and adults. The
project for students and the faculty advisor at Messiah College is
to develop and test a prototype of WERC, as a training-specific
adaptation of current generation multifunction cell phones including
separate wireless Bluetooth™ headsets and several additional discrete
wirelessly-connected components. These additional components
include a voice headset and a cell phone-type micro-video camera
that can be unobtrusively attached to a trainee’s eyeglasses, nametag,
or secured in other convenient locations. When successfully developed, WERC will permit a remote coach or trainer, to share his/her
trainees’ point of view — that is, to see and hear exactly what they
are seeing and hearing, in real time or, retroactively by “instant
replay.” The coach can then discuss and advise them about what is
happening, without the context-distorting effects of being physically
present in their situation, the only way in-situ training can currently
be done. Other WERC features permit further significant enhancements over existing onsite job training capabilities. To cite only one:
long after formal job coaching is completed, clients or their employers may elect to continue subscribing to a WERC-based support
service — as a sort of job crisis Onstar™ for Asperger’s Disorder —
where a WERC client who senses an impending crisis can request
active monitoring and get counsel from a remote coach to avert a
crisis. Or, if a situation developed too quickly to actually avert the
crisis, a WERC remote coach could at least support a client soon
enough after a crisis to permit damage control, and possibly facilitate
recovery after reviewing “instant replay” audio and video of the
event, from the client’s point of view. Developing and testing the
WERC prototype will advance SymBionyx’s offer of its SocialWERC
solution to the tools and resources required to equip the growing
and underserved population of Asperger’s Disorder clients to experience the fuller potential of employment and independent living.
If you are a student interested in helping develop the WERC
prototype as a ten-week paid internship project this summer, please
contact Dr. Underwood at HUnderw@messiah.edu.
Messiah faculty and students attend National Engineers Week banquet
From left to right: Sarah Jarnecki ’11, Professor Don Pratt, Jonathan Shenk ’08, Joshua Joyce ’08, and
Professor Carl Erikson attend the Engineers Week Banquet on February 21, 2008.
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Five faculty and thirteen students from the
Messiah College Engineering Department
attended the National Engineers Week
Banquet hosted by the Central Pennsylvania
Engineers Week Council, on February 21, at
the West Shore Country Club in Camp Hill,
PA. Besides enjoying fine food and fellowship, the group was inspired by engineering
award recipients and fascinated by a stateof-the-art presentation on Hybrid and
Hydrogen Vehicle Research, given by Dr. Joel
R. Angstrom, Director of the Hybrid and
Hydrogen Vehicle Research Center of the
Pennsylvania Transportation Institute.
A deja vu moment
by Bob Clancy
Recently at church we celebrated Sanctity
of Life Sunday, and at one point, scores of
little children were gently herded across the
front and onto the platform steps. Once
assembled, these precious little ones (some
very little) joined with the congregation in
singing that wonderful song we adults sang
as children: “Jesus loves the little children,
all the children of the world. Red and
yellow black and white, they are precious
in His sight. Jesus loves the little children
of the world.” It was a wonderful and
memorable sight.
But it was an emotional deja vu as well.
Just ten years earlier, possibly to the very
Sunday, there was a quite different yet
equally wonderful and memorable sight.
It happened 7,000 miles away at a church
in Ma’adaga, Burkina Faso, West Africa.
It wasn’t Sanctity of Life Sunday at that
church but there they were, the church’s
little children sitting on the platform steps.
These were their normal seats at church
every Sunday. Except for one crying little
one whose sister carried her back to her
mother, the children were nearly perfectly
behaved. I wondered then, as they looked
square into the faces of their singing families
and neighbors, wasn’t it a most entertaining
sight for them?
And sing we did. The song was the
same — “Jesus Loves the Little Children”—
but with a major enhancement: The whole
congregation was singing the song in full
voice simultaneously in either the local
Gourma language, French, or English (pick
a language, then join in). The experience
was powerful, both spiritually and emotionally. In that moment, it was easy to visualize
the same group, together with the folks
back home, one day singing the same song
while gathered before the throne in heaven.
A Messiah College team of faculty and
students was then in Ma’adaga (not the first
trip) to install a solar power system for
illumination and water pumping at a
dispensary which had served medical and
maternity patients for some 44 years. The
Pictured here is the team the went to Mahadaga in 1998. Third row (l to r): Phil Sorensen ’99, Ben
Claggett ’99, Matt Walsh ’00. Second row: Mr. John Meyer, Jonathan Knight ’99, Bryan Ondrasik ’00, Delsi
Atchina ’98, Doug Wewer ’99. First row: David Owen ’97, Professor David Vader, and Mr. Bob Clancy.
team was also surveying that spot and others to identify additional Messiah projects.
Six months ago, two missionary
couples with their young babies arrived to
serve in the same town of Ma’adaga. All four
of them are Messiah grads and one was a
leader in the group ten years ago. The two
couples will undertake leadership of the
long established work plus see to its expansion. A recent plan by the new missionaries
includes the acquisition of a 20-acre tract
nearby on which to develop a commercial
tree nursery.
Scores of faculty and students at
Messiah College have “owned” the work at
Ma’adaga since the beginning. The intervening 10 years have been filled with study,
design, prototype development, and many
trips to the field. Solar power, handicapped
tricycles, water pumps, and mathematics
teaching enhancement are representative
projects.
The program for Ma’adaga is progressing, gathering momentum, and broadening
in scope — in the best sense, things are
changing. Yet God is wonderfully unchanging even while remaining the heart beat
behind the motivations, direction, and
success of the program as well as behind
the spiritual and emotional development
of each of the players. In one sense, this
deja vu experience may be a small, passing
moment, yet it illuminates the comprehensive and faithful way in which our God
engages us.
“The program for Ma’adaga is
progressing, gathering momentum,
and broadening in scope — in the
best sense, things are changing. ”
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Department of Engineering
P.O. Box 3034
One College Avenue
Grantham, PA 17027
Address Service Requested
ENGINEERING NEWS • SPRING 2008
Our mission
The mission of Messiah College is to
educate men and women toward maturity
of intellect, character, and Christian faith in
preparation for lives of service, leadership,
and reconciliation in church and society.
Graduates of the engineering program
will therefore be technically competent
and broadly educated, prepared for
interdisciplinary work in the global
workplace. The character and conduct
of Messiah engineering graduates will be
consistent with Christian faith commitments.
We accomplish this mission through
engineering instruction and experiences,
an education in the liberal arts tradition,
and mentoring relationships with students.
Messiah hosts a special National Engineers Week event
The Department of Engineering hosted a
special day for local high school students
on February 21. Students in 10th to
12th grades from Cumberland Valley,
Mechanicsburg, and Northern York High
Schools as well as the local Home School
Cooperative were invited to hear a presentation on the career of engineering. Professor
Carl Erikson, chair of the Department of
Engineering, gave a 30 to 35 minute talk on
“What is Engineering?” The high school students were given tours of the engineering
laboratories as well as the opportunity to
hear Messiah engineering students talk
about some of their projects, including the
light sport aircraft, manual and electric tricycles, water purification systems, photovoltaic
system design, and communications. The
department treated each student to lunch at
Lottie Nelson Dining Hall. Special prizes
were awarded to the students.
Local high school students try the tricycles, while finding out more about the work of Collaboratory groups at
Messiah College.
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